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Making of Barn Texaco a addition to Repurposing of old buildings

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  • Member since
    February 2015
  • From: Ormond Beach, FL
  • 389 posts
Making of Barn Texaco a addition to Repurposing of old buildings
Posted by chocho willy on Thursday, July 12, 2018 12:33 PM
drawingside   Having recently done a article on repurposing of old pola buildings I thought I would detail what was necessary to complete a build, you can find the original from 1/7/18 labeled Barn's Texaco update. As mentioned in the "repurposing of old buildings" I salvaged 3 + building from a broken Wells Fargo Pola building. Think the hardest part was figuring how and where to cut the old building to maximize pieces. Most of the western style buildings have a separation strip running horizontal around the building and I found that it just about split the ground and upstairs in half. This became my first cut which I did on a table saw and then moved on to the figuring the size of the sides. Found that cutting the pieces in half left a usable size piece that allowed me to make small buildings. I think I made one of the building a little rectangular just for looks by just cutting off a small strip on the side, and all the rest were square. Saved the upstairs for the peaked end of the other buildings.
   Had a Idea of looks for the station from memories of old, and when I finished it I found a drawing that I had done back in early 80's that I wanted it to look like, and it was pretty close. Next moved on to making the corners fit and that was done again with table saw by removing some of the wall thickness material so that the corners would lap together like the original. Some of the walls were cracked or completely broken and cemented back together with Model Masters liquid glue( really works good on Pola stuff ) and actually melts the plastic back together. I decided on a flat roof as there were 3 pieces from the Fargo building and used 1 for the building and 1 for the over hang. I cut 2 wedge shaped pieces from some thick plastic to slope the station roof. The top façade became the front top "look at me" part for the station. Well being as it was going to be a Texaco station I found some red stars made for ceramic Christmas trees and lit them from underneath the small LED's that are powered by 2 "d" cell batteries which also power the pump area and interior of the station. I circled the them with rings made from PVC pipe and painted black
   Some old fashion weathered decals from eBay really brought it to life. Pumps were also purchased from there. I changed the hoses on them as the originals were too large and wouldn't hang properly. Like most my projects I purposely make some things wrong or out of place just for conversation purposes, just something to think about later, so if you get a chance revisit the post on Barn's Texaco and read about the roof color and EPA warring on the pumps, kind of funny. The other 2 buildings that were made with these parts were Sand house and Coaling tower, along with small parts  going to Girl at the top of the stairs hotel. Still have 1 flat roof to use and I'm open to suggestions. Any question on this or other projects let me know, Bill Texacobuilding wallsdouble doorsfront lit pump and stars

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